A quick-thinking waitress has been hailed a hero after she saved the life of an 11-year-old boy who was being ‘tortured’ by his own parents.
Flaviane Carvalho was working a shift at Mrs Potato Head in Orlando when she noticed strange behaviour by the family on January 1st this year.
‘When the order came to the table I observed that the boy was denied food,’ Carvalho recalled.
When she approached the family’s table to check everything was ok, the child’s stepfather insisted the boy would be eating dinner at home.
It was then that she noticed the young child had a large scratch on his forehead, as well as bruises on his face and arms.
Shocked by what she’d seen, Carvalho crafted a sign to ask whether the boy was in danger.
Writing the words ‘Do you need help?’ on a piece of paper, she held the sign up for the boy to read out of view of his parents.
When he nodded, she immediately called emergency services who came to speak with the boy right away.
Sadly, Carvalho’s instincts were right, as the boy later told police he had been tied up and starved by his parents.
A spokesperson for the Orlando Police Department explained the child had claimed he had been subject to a range of horrific torture methods, including being tied up, starved and beaten with a wooden broom.
The boy’s stepfather Tim Wilson has since been charged with child abuse, while his mother Kirsten Swann has been charged with neglect over claims she knew about the abuse, but had’t made an effort to stop it or seek medical care for her son.
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